Pink and Grey
by AlienMermaid
Summary: Haymitch is bleeding into the punch bowl at a party of fashionistas. Something about the colour scheme has upset him. Enter Effie, wearing grey. Haymitch starts to talk. Things get messy. Eventual Hayffie. Pre-74th Hunger Games. Mild angst with a fluffy payoff (as requested by PirateKitten). Chapter Four now up.
1. Chapter 1

It was one of those times when he seemed to watch himself from a great distance, aware that every thing he did to make the situation worse was a choice, unable to choose otherwise. The partygoers had frozen, though the sound could not have been louder than their laughter.

Haymitch could not in all honesty recall how his glass had shattered in his hand, but the punch bowl seemed to be the most appropriate place for him to clean the cuts on his palm. The sickly-looking alcohol began to turn a darker shade of pink, while, all around him, affected Capitol voices made noises of scandalised distaste. Haymitch's stomach turned over in spite of himself as he forced out a laugh that quickly became a retch.

"So," he managed, staggering slightly as he scooped up a now distinctly bloodied ladle full of punch with his free hand. "I guess this was part of the colour-scheme too, right? What was the name of that shade you…mentioned…just now?"

_Ah_, Haymitch thought, _there it is._

And there indeed it was. The air of scandal had suddenly acquired a tangible note of danger. The cat-eyed woman with the bright pink wig who had been talking to be overheard up until a moment ago was trying to settle her face into an expression she clearly hoped would magically diffuse the situation.

"My dear Haymitch," flustered cat-eyes. "You of all people should be _appreciative_ of the recognition your district is receiving in the world of fashion. It isn't as though we have a lot to _work _with, after all. I mean – "

She broke off to indulge herself in a slightly hysterical titter.

"I _mean, _you're the only victor we have to work with these days, and frankly we're running out of ideas."

If anybody laughed, it was uneasily.

"She has a point, darling," chipped in a woman whose neck wore a bizarre ornament that seemed to enter at one end and emerge from the other like a long, curved beak. "Metella Flutterby hasn't sold so much as a pair of socks since she tried to make disembowelling chic happ– aaargh!"

Her words ended in a long shriek as Haymitch, with an almost lazy flicking motion entirely at odds with his boiling veins, landed a ladle of bloody punch all over her face and neck. He was shaking badly now, but his voice still fought to remain calm.

"Adds a touch of realism, don't you think?" he said, removing his cut hand from the bowl and examining the damage.

"Sorry," he added, deliberately. "I seem to be bleeding."

And with that, he seized the end of the nearest tablecloth, pulled down violently, and, with an almighty crash, sent plates and bowls flying in every direction.

"Well isn't that just my luck," he said sardonically as the assembled partygoers squawked dazedly like concussed peacocks. "I've been practising that trick all day, but the funny thing about me is that I never seem to perform well in front of an audience."

He seized the corner of the cloth covering the next table and pulled. More food and drink went smashing to the floor on broken plates. The waste of it soured the thrill of it.

"Messed up _again_!" he cried, this time holding onto the tablecloth long enough to wrap up his bleeding hand. "Just like me to make a mess."

"HAYMITCH!"

The voice cut through the commotion like cannon fire. Haymitch closed his eyes for a split second as one corner of his mouth twisted into a smile.

"Hello, sweetheart."

Effie Trinket, cool as steel in a shade of grey that Haymitch couldn't place, was tottering furiously towards him, somehow managing to avoid the debris whilst never taking her eyes off his. For the first time that night, Haymitch felt himself relax. There was something perversely comforting about Effie's entirely predictable anger. He let it wash over him like alcohol. There was no need to feel or to think about anything else.

"Haymitch Abernathy, that tablecloth is couture. Don't even _think_ of ruining another one on account of a piece of cheap high street design."

Suddenly, uproar. More than there had been when Haymitch had broken the glass. More than there had been when he had trashed two tables groaning with too much food. But the uproar was, suddenly, safe.

"Cheap!" squealed cat-eyes, her pink wig on end.

"This is Ariadne Shuttleworth," chipped in the punch-covered woman, who now seemed to have forgotten that she was covered in punch.

"Ariadne Shuttleworth for _Tributaries_," quipped Effie scornfully, actually clicking her fingers as she did so to indicate to the nearby avox that she required a glass of bubbles.

Incredibly – or so it seemed to Haymitch – several of the partygoers actually laughed at this, breaking up into bloodthirsty chuckles as Effie took her glass and sipped the tiniest of sips, while cat-eyes Ariadne and the punchdrunk woman bristled.

"Now, now," she trilled, having given her nose the smallest of wrinkles as she swallowed. "I mustn't forget my manners. Ariadne darling, I'm sure you weren't to know how very last season it is to be wearing fatality chic. I mean, heavens! It's not going to be considered tacky until my column tomorrow morning. Oh, editor's decision, darling, of course, not mine."

Another outbreak of chatter – laughter, intrigue, the beginnings of debate. Haymitch beckoned the avox to him in silence and, unnoticed by all but Effie, gulped down two glasses of bubbles, one after the other. He felt vaguely annoyed that Effie was now fully occupied with being the effervescent centre of the group, which was now totally engaged in vapid Capitol chit-chat, as the avoxes rebuilt the shattered party around them. He felt the burden of hatred rushing back to him like the forgotten pain in his mangled hand. He knew he was losing his grip on his surroundings, and was conscious enough to care. He wished Effie would shout at him some more.

_Click._

More bubbles. He felt better. He missed the name of the designer, and the colour, that Effie was wearing. He thought he heard his name. He thought he must have been right in thinking it because Effie looked slightly hurt when he looked up at her a little too late.

"Not your colour, sweetheart," he said, hoping to provoke her into berating him again. She might have blushed, but he couldn't be sure. He tried to click his fingers, but he couldn't seem to feel them any more.


	2. Chapter 2

Haymitch awoke with his head – and his hand – throbbing. He knew at once that he was still very drunk, and that the party appeared to be over. The banner that had begun the evening proclaiming _District Twelve: from Seam to Seam _appeared to have fallen down at one end so that only half the words were visible. The display mannequins that had been posed artistically around the room now leaned queasily on one another for support, gesticulating fruitlessly in various directions. One of the mannequins was far too close for comfort.

Haymitch blinked. Effie Trinket, dressed from wig to toe in that oddly familiar shade of grey, was standing over him, brimming with busy rage.

"Do you have any idea of the extent to which I have risked humiliating myself on your behalf this evening?" she began, launching without preamble into what looked to be a full-blown tirade. They must have been the only ones left in the room, for she was not troubling to keep her voice down.

Haymitch grinned. Had he been sober, or – worse – hungover, this would have been unbearable, but in his present state, a routine scolding from Effie was as good as a swig of moonshine.

"Keep going, sweetheart – you've already managed to go grey overnight, let's see if you can pop a wrinkle."

He had expected the familiar spark of indignation, for her to carry on lecturing him about his various breaches of etiquette, but she simply looked as though he had slapped her in the face. He could have sworn for a split-second that there had actually been tears welling up behind her contact lenses. He shifted uncomfortably, realising as he did so how awkwardly he was slumped in the corner.

"Hey, no offence meant, I just – I mean – what's with the monochrome anyway? What d'you call that shade? _Ashes of Civilisation_?"

He tried to force a laugh, but it made his head swim. Effie, having regained her composure, and perhaps cognisant of the imminent danger of gastric pyrotechnics, moved off a little and sat with dignity upon a chair a few feet away.

"I had _hoped_ – more fool me – to contribute a little _class_ to the proceedings," she said after a few moments, apparently having deliberated her answer. "And besides, if anyone is going to be able to provide a little _authentic _local colour, it's going to be someone who has actually spent time in the District. After all, I do have close ties with Twelve."

Haymitch sat up, swayed, then leaned back with a derisive snort, closing his eyes.

"Sweetheart, you have no idea."

Haymitch could almost see her eyes flashing through his own closed eyelids. He wondered vaguely what colour they actually were. He realised he hadn't a clue.

"Well one of us has to be an ambassador for our District," quipped Effie, the shrillness of her voice somehow more brittle than usual. "It's the first night of the Games and already you're jeopardising…I am _trying_ to get people talking about Twelve as a place with…with something to _contribute_ to Capitol _culture_. Not that any of that matters now."

Her voice was beginning to rise. Dangerously. Haymitch knew where the conversation was headed and he wasn't sure he knew how to stop it. He suddenly felt exhausted.

"Do you know what they were calling it?" he asked without opening his eyes. His voice sounded far away again.

"Calling what?" snapped Effie, off her guard.

"The colour, sweetheart. That…pink colour being showcased by that – what did you call her – cheap high street designer?" Haymitch tried to chuckle but found he didn't have the energy. "You know, I'd like to think you were taking a stand against some really – and I mean really – appalling taste, but we both know you were only trying to save the situation from the punch-throwing drunk. Which, to your credit, you did exceptionally well."

He mimed raising a drink to where he imagined Effie to be sitting. His eyelids felt heavy when he tried to open them, so he let them remain closed.

"I know perfectly well what they were calling it, thank you very much," said Effie stiffly, her voice suddenly icy.

"Then say it."

"Haymitch – " Effie began, half warning, half pleading.

"Go on. The colour. I want you to say it."

"_Haymitch._" She hurled the words at him as though she were throwing a wine glass at his head. "Our tributes are _dead_."

"_I know_," roared Haymitch, wrenching his eyes open for an agonising few seconds before screwing them still more tightly shut. He began to talk rapidly, trying to outrun the inevitable moment when his voice would escape his control. "I know, Effie, I saw it happen, same as you. They died in the bloodbath, there's nothing we could have done. Even if tonight hadn't been a total disaster, even if I'd bitten my tongue and pretended to be flattered when some clueless Capitol vulture decided to turn a death I _personally_ witnessed into a fashion accessory, it would not have given them a better chance."

Haymitch's breathing was heavy. Now that he had stopped, it seemed to take a great deal of effort to thread the syllables together on his breath.

"Go on," he managed. "I'm waiting. I'll help you. May…that's it...May…"

"Maysilee," finished Effie quietly. "The colour was Maysilee."


	3. Chapter 3

Haymitch's eyes were watering with exhaustion. He didn't want to talk about it, any of it. Especially not tonight. Especially not with Effie. But the same something which had made him a spectator of his own car-crash actions earlier that evening seemed to be keeping him talking.

"That's right," he said, instinctively not thinking about how he was managing not to slur his words. It was like negotiating a staircase when drunk: the moment you thought about where you were placing your feet was the moment you lost your footing and fell. "Maysilee Donner. You remember her, of course."

His head was starting to spin in the dark, so at last he opened his eyes. When he tried to focus on Effie, she was spinning, too. He appreciated dimly that her silence might have been tact. He didn't know if he wanted her to listen or to witter.

"Or at least you remember the way that she died. Which I'm assuming is why the colour they named after her is the same as those frankly ridiculous-sounding birds."

Effie still wasn't speaking, but he could feel her eyes on him even as he tried to get her face into focus.

"I think maybe one of the reasons I don't talk about it is because you can't really talk about candy-pink murder birds and expect to be taken seriously. Killed by mutts is tragic. Killed by pink mutts is a joke. Their joke. It always…bothered me."

For the first time since he'd come round, Haymitch noticed the cut hand he'd wrapped in the pink tablecloth.

"I'm telling you this because you won't understand it, and because I intend not to remember in the morning," he said carefully. "I'm telling you that when I held her hand, it was the first time since entering the arena that I'd touched anyone who wasn't trying to hurt me or who I wasn't trying to hurt. And when I got home…"

His voice was cracking. He wouldn't be needing it much longer.

"When I got home, there was nobody to…and I realised never again…"

The distance he had maintained from himself collapsed. He was suddenly, horribly, entirely present in his own mind and body, caught up in the mangled mess of it. He needed a drink, he needed to sleep, he needed very urgently not to be conscious. He reached for a bottle, any bottle, and found his hand closing on something much more brittle, something much warmer.

Effie had left her chair and had apparently picked her way through the detritus surrounding Haymitch like an uncertain ungulate before crouching before him on precarious heels. He saw that his uncut hand had closed around Effie's wrist, and that she was trying to examine the hand in the tablecloth, her long, grey nails edging towards the bloodied fabric like tentative quotation marks.

"Leave me alone," mumbled Haymitch.

"Hold still."

"You'll ruin your dress."

"It's called Abernathy."


	4. Chapter 4

Haymitch looked blankly at her.

"The dress. The colour of the dress I'm wearing. It's called Abernathy."

"I don't get it."

"Though perhaps a more bloodshot look _would_ have been more accurate. I really don't understand why you have to do this in social situations, it's utterly mortifying."

Haymitch's Seam-grey irises finally found Effie's.

"I don't really notice people's eyes," he managed after a moment. Effie blinked angrily.

"Well, you're not the only one. The third-rate designers whose work you witnessed this evening wouldn't recognise a tribute from Twelve unless they had a pack of killer flamingos hanging out of their necks. No subtlety whatsoever. Utterly without taste."

"Sure, you wouldn't know a thing about that, now, would, you, sweetheart?"

Relief was flooding over him. Whether because what he'd said had gone completely over her head or because she had understood him enough not to say anything, Effie was slowly steering the conversation back to a semblance of normality.

"Forgive me, but the last time I looked, I wasn't the one making Abernathy a byword for social suicide," quipped Effie, unwrapping Haymitch's hand with short, sharp movements as though throwing back a bedsheet under which she expected to find a nest of spiders.

"I know, I know, you're an ambassador for – aaargh!"

Haymitch let out a bloodcurdling howl. Effie had finally succeeded in removing the cloth, and, as the blood had dried the fabric to the wound, the tentative, tweezering motions she had been making with her long nails had ripped both cloth and scab from his hand, causing the cuts to reopen. They weren't deep, and he had yelled more for dramatic effect than out of any significant pain, but it had still hurt. What was more, there had been a brief yet impressive spurt of blood, which was quickly joined by a second, more high-pitched wailing as Effie's dress succumbed to the entirely predictable fate of all pristine things left too long in Haymitch's vicinity. Haymitch started to laugh. It was a little malicious in spite of himself.

"What did I tell you, sweetheart?" he said, seizing the hem of her dress with his bloodied hand as she tried to distance herself from further damage. "Not so tasteful now it's on you, is it?"

Haymitch continued to laugh as poor, bewildered Effie struggled with all the show and inefficacy of a moth against glass.

"Let go of me!" she squeaked, hampered in her efforts to escape by her apparent unwillingness to touch him long enough to give him a decent shove.

"Look me in the eye," he taunted. "Look me in my _Abernathy_ eyes and tell me that _any _of this is tasteful. Tasteful!"

"Haymitch Abernathy, unhand me this instant!" blustered Effie. "It's…it's…"

"Couture?" supplied Hyamitch, applying his bleeding hand to the fussy little details around the neckline.

"Let _go_!"

Haymitch reeled backwards in shock as Effie's talon-tipped hand came out of nowhere, slapping him hard in the face. With a stab of guilt, Haymitch noted the trail his bleeding hand had left on her person, making the connection – far, far too late – between the dress and the woman underneath it. He held up his hands as though admitting to a crime, appalled. Effie scurried back as far as her seat and began to sob in earnest. Haymitch massaged his temples.

"Effie – " he began weakly. "Effie, I'm – I'm sorry, I wasn't – I just – the dress – "

"Is _ruined_!" sobbed Effie, dabbing her eyes with her fingertips, trying to avoid dislodging her grey contact lenses with her long, grey fingernail. Haymitch closed his eyes again, tired, drunk, guilty, incredulous.

"Effie…" he tried again, but did not know what to say. "Effie, don't cry."

Effie seemed to be trying to curb her tears, not to save face, but long enough to say something important.

"Haymitch Abernathy – "

Effie faltered, took a few steadying breaths, fixed him with a stare.

"Haymith Abernathy," she began again through little gulps and sobs. "One day you will stop trying to hurt me long enough to realise that I am _not_ trying to hurt you."


End file.
